True Growth Greater Moncton

I know it is summer and things are supposed to slow down, but I have to admit that I’ve had one of the most stimulating weeks I’ve had in ages. It started on Monday with a really fabulous meeting with City staff to discuss some governance changes I would like to see (City Clerk, Communications and Corporate Policy), this led into a dynamic private and public session of Council. Tuesday I had the amazing opportunity to attend a Digital Future conversation in Fredericton that made me think in all kinds of new ways to create success in our province. Yesterday, I was lucky enough to participate in a fabulous conversation on open data/open government and then today, the icing on the cake, I was asked to participate in a new initiative called “True Growth Greater Moncton”.

From 10-1 today a group of roughly 28 people from many different sectors (education, private enterprise, arts and culture, economic development, ICT, social justice, etc.) got together to discuss a sustainable smart city model for prosperity.

Spearheaded by Roddy Awad, CEO of TKS, two Cisco specialists presented their model to execute true growth across the country. They spoke about the value of collaboration (and that it is really hard, but the only way forward!), the power of networks, the fact that we are conditioned to compete (but this is not central to collaboration), “cooperating” is the death of collaboration (basically, you are trying not to lose), that the universe isn’t finite – there is an opportunity for everyone to win and finally, that everyone must be engaged completely…if you are involved just because you think it is a “good” thing, this will die. The most important things with a model like this are to have a clear purpose and to create the conditions for success. So the idea is to bring a wide variety of people together who can then go out and inspire more people to get involved in finding solutions. Citizen engagement, yet again.

We then discussed the traditional hierarchy model (product, control, secrecy, machine) vs. the network model (purpose, collaboration, open, ecosystem). With the network model you are ready to act, even if you don’t know exactly which direction you are going in. Bringing diverse people together without knowing precisely where you are going creates tension, but this is good, this is where the real magic happens (need to get away from having the same discussions with the same people with the same mindsets).

To get started we need to focus (common goals), collaborate (connect, innovate) and celebrate (measure success and communicate that success…this is constantly coming up these days…we have so many great stories happening in our community but we do a terrible job of letting people know).

So, what is the process for sustainable growth? Well, we need to map it, brand it (what is unique about us), create an inventory (gap analysis, what do we need?), identify sectors (create a framework so that the community can accomplish what it sets out to…need passionate people!), identify projects (this needs to come from citizens who have the energy for a specific project – this can create chaos and tensions, but this is good!), curate it (this creates the conditions for success of the team).

I wish I had access to the visuals from the presentation, but imagine a 3-dimensional triangle formed with three major balls with a space in the middle. Each ball is: 1. Pioneer (innovators: universities, think tanks, “how do we evolve”); 2. Providers (economic – we need wealth in our community – who are the people who export for profit? Who creates efficiencies?) and 3. Nurturers (schools, healthcare, NB Power, United Way)….and there is a little ball in the middle (City) and another little ball that is outside of the triangle (Curator). Traditionally, the three groups don’t get along and when they get together, there is generally tension (i.e., the nurturing group thinks that the providers are only in it for profit and that the pioneers are all theory and no practicality; the providers think the nurturers don’t have a clue about the real world and that the pioneers are in their ivory towers and the pioneers think that the providers are crass money-grabbers and the nurturers … don’t know, missed this!). However, tension is good! This is when real innovation takes place. But then, the 4-year political cycle comes along and messes up everything!

 

(We then took a small detour to explain why Cisco is involved: they spend $5.6 billion (edited) on R&D every year and believe that smart cities and smartly connected communities are vital to their future success. So, they like to help bridge the digital divide in any way that they can.)

We then moved on to the uniqueness of our community and in a nutshell came up with this list (not definitive) of growth sectors: transportation, health, gaming, ICT, advanced manufacturing and tourism. Then, the factors that affect all of this (because this is not a matrix, it isn’t a horizontal/vertical thing…it is 3-D): urban core/sprawl, immigration/talent; arts and culture; and entrepreneurial hub…and overlaying everything is the technology that gives us a productivity advantage.

Then, the perennial Economic Development question: “How am I going to compete vs. Toronto?” Well, we can’t. But, we can compete on the productivity and freedom fronts (they didn’t like the “quality of life” argument, but would rather the concept of freedom…freedom from the tyranny of spending 1.5 hours commuting to work, freedom from having to spend your entire salary on your mortgage, etc.).  If workers here have these “freedoms” they are 3% more productive and currently it costs at least 15% less to do business in Moncton than other urban centres.  Suddenly, we are seen to be a much more attractive place to do business.

There was SO much more, but I unfortunately had to leave before we had the opportunity to really synthesize everything. We did however discuss having 3+ (formerly EGM) act as the curator to harness all this energy: they would lead the process, map and empower the ecosystem, create the conditions for success and curate the portfolio of True Growth projects.

Lots and lots more to come on this. (July 25: I actually just received a copy of the Powerpoint from Cisco, so if you would like to see it just e-mail me at dawn.arnold@moncton.ca and I can e-mail it to you...so much better than my illustrations!)